Cambridge, England – Nineb Lamassu cannot take credit for his passport reading Assyria. As a PhD Candidate at the University of Cambridge, Lamassu says his wife Susan did the convincing with Australian passport officials to change their place of birth.

Today, Nineb fights for Assyrian rights, including the right to name Assyria as a place of birth, through his PhD work on language studies as well as through a number of authored books, an Assyrian language publishing company, Enheduanna Publishing, and an app designed for Assyrian language books.

“Assyria is in your head,” Lamassu said. “If you don’t believe in Assyria and don’t keep it in your heart, it can never exist on the ground.”

A PASSION FOR LANGUAGE

Born as Nineb Giwargis Toma Al Bazi in the ancient Assyrian city of Arrapkha (modern day Kirkuk), Nineb grew up in a refugee camp in Iran. His close-knit community kept their Assyrian traditions alive and promoted higher education, including putting up white cloths to hold church services and teaching children the languages of Assyrian, English, and French.

Lamassu and his family later moved to New Zealand and then Australia, where he met his wife Susan, a daughter of the late singer George Homeh. They finally settled on England, where Nineb changed his surname to Lamassu.

“I wanted a name from our homeland of ancient Assyria,” he said. “When my wife and I got married and had a son, we didn’t want our son to have my last name which is of Jewish origin or Susan’s last name which is of Persian origin. We wanted him to have an Assyrian last name.”

While in the UK, Lamassu studied Ancient and Eastern Studies in Archaeology and Ancient Languages at London’s Global University, where his work included excavating archaeological sites in Turkey and studying language courses consisting of Akkadian, Sumerian, and Biblical Aramaic.

His first Master’s Degree was in Biblical Aramaic and his second was in Modern Aramaic.

Preserving the Assyrian language is what Lamassu considers his passion. In his opinion, by losing the language – which according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is already endangered – Assyrians will lose their identity.

“Language is the one part of our identity which is forgotten the easiest,” Lamassu said. “Language is not only teaching how to speak but it is also in our literature.”

He hopes that reading Assyrian literature will one day be so common in our communities that it could reach the level of international literature.

“Assyrian literature must move us back to Assyria,” Lamassu said. “It must make every Assyrian man and woman say, ‘Wow, what a beautiful language.’”

For Lamassu, one thing missing in the global Assyrian community is a way to make the youth fall in love with the language.

Lamassu refers to Bet Kanu, an Assyrian organization that uses cartoon videos and games to teach children the language in a playful way, as a powerful tool for the youngest demographics.

The current language tools in place, he says, fail to address an age range of Assyrians.

“We have a huge gap between children, adults, and older adults. This gap is called the youth. We must use more creative ways to make our youth fall in love with the language,” he said.

In order to preserve the language at a local level, Lamassu believes that communities must begin hosting workshops, online lectures, promoting apps and engaging in social networks.

LANGUAGE IS POLITICS

To support his work with the Assyrian language, Lamassu says it is important to get involved in politics. Every Assyrian, he says, is born political because of the oppression they experience by being denied an identity and certain rights.

During the Baath regime in Iraq, for example, he points out that it was forbidden to partake in anything related to the Assyrian heritage.

“The fact that you would speak the language and write in the language was a political act,” he said. “Language is politics.”

Lamassu calls on all Assyrian academics to be brave enough to speak up for their people, even in spite of risking their reputations or losing their high-ranking positions.

“I did not become an academic to earn money,” he said. “I became an academic to serve humanity and my people in particular.”

In order to accomplish this, he believes Assyrian organizations need to change their tactics and better utilize tools such as social media. According to Lamassu, only if Assyrians get their hope and faith restored, then they will have a chance to someday have a country.

“We need to reach Assyrians who do not care about their people and to do that we need integrity, sincerity, and practical ways of how to implement the vision,” he said. “We must understand that times have changed and we should change with them. We must not have self-interest and we have to find creative ways to move forward.”

Lamassu is running as an independent candidate on the ABNAA Al-Nahrain List 154. Parliamentary elections will be held in Iraq on May 12, 2018.

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Chicago, IL – “I started vlogging to have a more highly produced version of an archive of my life. This year’s vlog of the Assyrian convention is footage from a lot of different things. It’s both the pool parties and something more in-depth and cultural, so a mix of both. I also did a lot of things that doing a vlog for wouldn’t do justice, like the youth summit. You have to be there for that, it’s not the same to see it, you have to be there and interact with people. One day I’m going to look back and have all of these memories nicely produced of what I did at this convention. I encourage everyone to do it.”

Dallas, TX – “Having grown up in the West, one of the positives is that my girls have the ability to empower themselves. For me, raising girls here is similar to raising boys. I’m going to teach them what I know, whether it’s science, engineering, you name it, it doesn’t make a difference to me their gender. There is no glass ceiling from my perspective, I want them to be as successful as they can be.”

Chicago, IL – “I never get tired of traveling because I travel for my people and enjoy accomplishing something for my nation. I also love people watching. That’s why I go to the airport an hour earlier, just to sit around and watch everyone and listen to my podcasts. I love people and I get joyful when I hear them laughing. We need more happiness in the world. We don’t see it anymore. Everyone’s head is down, everyone is looking at their phones, everyone is so intense. There is so much conflict in the world, you don’t see anyone laugh anymore. So when I do see those glimpses of joy and happiness, it makes me so happy.”

Dallas, TX – “I started playing soccer in my village. It was a reason to get together as Assyrians every week. We would play soccer and then go eat or hang out. I eventually played for the Assyrian club in Urmi. When I moved to San Jose, I helped found the Infinite Sports Association. Now in Dallas, it’s funny that there are a lot of empty soccer fields that you don’t get elsewhere. We used to pay a lot of money to get a couple hours to play on this type of field. In San Jose, for two hours we would pay almost $250 and here in Dallas this field is free with beautiful grass, free goals, everything free.”

Chicago, IL – “I grew up in a bad country and couldn’t talk about anything, even our flag because you were always scared of the government. A lot of people don’t know how this flag is special for people. That’s why we do this in our yard, because we want people to recognize that if we didn’t have this American flag then we wouldn’t be sitting in this house today. People fought for this flag, for this freedom so we can sit here together and talk about being both Assyrian and American. You lose one of your identities if you don’t.”

Dallas, TX – “With motherhood, you first think of all of those happy times of sitting down and playing and going out. But it’s more about giving all of who you are, everything you have, plus more. When you think to yourself, ‘I’ve given everything I have,’ and then they wake up at night one more time and you say, ‘I have to do this again, I have to give more after I’ve already given everything.’ It’s the hardest job and it takes everything out of you, but it’s worth it and you would do it all over again when you see them happy.”